1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the invention relate to a low-power driving apparatus and method, and more particularly to a low-power driving apparatus and method that can reduce driving power by dynamically controlling brightness of a display monitor based on ambient conditions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Personal portable terminals such as mobile phones or PDAs offer unprecedented user convenience due to advantageous features, including portability, mobility, and the like. In this regard, however, it is necessary to minimize power consumed by the personal portable terminals due to such features.
For example, among various components forming a personal portable terminal, a component for supplying a light source to display an image, e.g., backlight unit, consumes the majority of power consumed in the personal portable terminal. In such a case, by reducing the power consumed by the backlight unit and a luminance reduction rate due to the reduced power consumption is compensated for by digitally processing image information, thereby achieving a low-driving power effect of the personal portable terminal while maintaining the overall luminance of the image perceived by the user.
Meanwhile, personal portable terminals are exposed to various conditions due to such characteristics, by which a user may differently perceive brightness of an image appearing on a display monitor depending on ambient illuminance even if light having a constant magnitude is continuously supplied from a backlight unit, that is, the luminance of the display monitor is uniform. Consequently, visual perception of the image may deteriorate and power consumption may be caused due to unnecessarily high luminance.
Accordingly, there is a need for a personal portable terminal capable of achieving a low-power driving effect while maintaining the brightness of an image at a minimum level even when the ambient illuminance is changed.